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January 28, 2022

Ableism, Queer History, and TikToks

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Happy National LEGO Day! Did you know the plural of LEGO is just LEGO?

Anyway, let’s crack into this week’s threads.

#GiveUsThisDayOurDailyThread

As a sex educator, I do try to tell people to avoid buying sex toys on Amazon for a number of reasons. However, not being open to nuance on this topic is harmful:

Twitter avatar for @GraysonGoal
Grayson (he/him) @GraysonGoal
Ok AND let's talk about why the lack of nuance is harmful. As always, none of what I say here is intended to be an attack/dunk on the original poster. These threads are a deeper dive into issues that aren't one-tweet things. #GiveUsThisDayOurDailyThread
Twitter avatar for @Epiphora
Epiphora @Epiphora
Love it when people casually admit that they buy sex toys on Amazon. And by "love" I mean it hurts my soul on a deep level.
7:47 PM ∙ Jan 26, 2022
4Likes2Retweets

Also this week, I learned that Martin Luther King, Jr., dealt with depression beginning in childhood. This ties directly into one of my daily threads this week:

Twitter avatar for @GraysonGoal
Grayson (he/him) @GraysonGoal
Whoo, y'all, the ableism here. AND also the racism in focusing on calling this man out while letting the comments of the millions of white politicians and pundits who do this shit daily slip by quietly. #GiveUsThisDayOurDailyThread
Twitter avatar for @CesarChavezAZ
César N. Chávez @CesarChavezAZ
Allowing severely mentally ill and drug addicted individuals to roam public places unsupervised is inhumane. In my district, this has become a problem. During the past months, I’ve been working with stakeholders to brainstorm several ideas. These ideas will be introduced soon.
2:07 AM ∙ Jan 24, 2022
19Likes7Retweets

This thread turned into a loooooong post about Ableism, Willowbrook, and The Pandemic.

Queer History

Apparently, a lot of younger queer + trans folks are unaware of why queer elders are rare. The CDC and others (‘sup Reagan) purposefully mishandled the HIV/AIDS epidemic because, well, they saw it ‘only’ affecting the LGBTQ+ community.

When a pandemic is only harming the people you dislike, you don’t have to do anything about it, right?

On a semi-related note, many people aren’t aware that we were so close to trans acceptance in Germany prior to World War II.

Hirschfeld sought to promote the acceptance of those who did not conform to existing sexual or gender norms. He conducted research, collected data, and spread awareness of his ideas and findings.  He opened the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft or The Institute for Sexual Science in 1919.
The Institute for Sexual Science was the first facility of its kind. It offered medical care, professional training, research opportunities, and public sex education.  It also served as a residence and community center. Hirschfeld had an apartment above the institute. His partner, Karl Giese, was the director of the institute’s library and archive. Many others worked on the staff over the years.   Patients who had no means to pay for their treatment sometimes lived and worked at the institute as well.
Transgender people were on the staff of the Institute, as well as being among the clients there. Various endocrinologic and surgical services were offered, including the first modern gender affirmation surgeries in the 1930s. They had around 20,000 visitors and conducted around 1,800 consultations each year.  That includes the first documented vaginoplasty to Dora "Dörchen" Richter, who worked at the Institute until her (presumed) death in 1933.  Trans folks were also on the cutting edge in other ways, from attending conferences and conducting research about their communities to becoming medical providers and surgeons.
Hirschfeld began to be targeted for his queerness, Jewishness, and occupation. He left on a tour in 1930 and never came back.  In the morning of May 6, 1933, the Berliner Lokalanzeiger newspaper announced that the purging of all libraries and other institutions of books of "un-German spirit" would start that day at the institute. Multiple times that day, students and others came in causing mass destruction, destroying not only papers and books but exhibition pieces and patient data.  In between the mayhem, Joseph Goebbels gave a speech praising the group.
What the Nazis had seized, they burned on May 7 in a public spectacle in the Opernplatz. In fact, many historic images like those below were of the destruction of the Institute.Many medical records of people involved with the Institute were destroyed. It is believed that others were seized to be used during the Night of the Long Knives to kill homosexual men in the Storm Detachment (AKA the Brownshirts).  It is believed that Dora "Dörchen" Richter was killed in either this attack on the Institute or one of the following ones that year.
Hirschfeld died in 1935, unable to restart the Institute.  6 million Jewish people and millions of others were murdered by the Nazis. Some estimates, including war, go as high as 35 million people.  From our queer and trans ancestors in Berlin to our disabled, Black, and Brown siblings around the world, we may never know the full extent of what we lost.May their memories be a blessing shinning brightly and guiding us on the right path. "Per Scientiam ad Justitiam" ("through science to justice") – Magnus Hirschfeld

You can learn more here.


From Friends

  • Shayda Kafai’s ‘Crip Kinship’ traces a legacy of Sins Invalid’s disability justice activism by Dev Ramsawakh

  • I’m a High-Risk Disabled Professor. Am I Teaching In Person? by Jillian Weise

  • Elly Belle is hosting a new mini-series on Teen Vogue’s TikTok about cultivating a better relationship with social media

What You Need To Know

  • How to store Covid at-home tests properly

  • National LGBTQ group GLSEN appoints first Black, nonbinary executive director (Melanie Willingham-Jaggers)

  • New Study That Could Eliminate Deferral Period on Gay and Bisexual Men Donating Blood Is Underway

  • You Need to Hear This COVID-19 Public Service Announcement from Immunocompromised Patients

  • I doubt this will bring on the end times, but maybe? Don’t? Go to Pennsylvania right now?

Articles I Enjoyed This Week

  • Amy Schneider Can’t Stop Winning by James Factora

  • It’s Long Past Time to End the FDA’s Gay Blood Ban by Samantha Riedel

  • I Loved “Archive 81” — Then I Found Out Melody Got “Straightwashed” by Kayla

  • As a Black, Fat, Disabled Person in Love, My Monogamy Feels Radical by Teighlor McGee

  • It’s Your Anniversary: Rent Was My First Class On Anti-Capitalism by Em Win

  • The Secret Abortion Movement That Revolutionized Feminist Health Before “Roe v. Wade” by Faustina Johnson

  • Toxic Black Mold Is Growing In My Brain by Tyson Bottenus

  • Patchwork system for rationing a Covid drug sends immunocompromised patients on a ‘Hunger Games hunt’ by Eric Boodman

  • Doctors were complicit in Holocaust atrocities. Current and future health care workers need to know that by Hedy S. Wald, Herwig Czech and Shmuel P. Reis

  • The whitest specialty: As medicine strives to close its diversity gaps, one field remains a stubborn outlier by Usha Lee McFarling

  • CVS Health, Uber Health Partner on Rideshare for Better Care Access by Sarai Rodriguez

  • Two-thirds of people with omicron say they’ve had Covid before, English study reports by Chloe Taylor

Delightful TikToks

  • The str8 men stay providing comedy

  • Everyone enjoys singing “it’s raining men” until they realize what that could mean

  • The Mothman tattoo I need

  • This song is in the running to represent Latvia in Eurovision 2022, and I want it to win

  • The best tldr version of The Lord of The Rings

  • I wish all visits to the DMV were this fun

  • One of my favorite Ghostbusters lines made TikTok now

  • When HCPs mess it up

  • And, of course, that chronic illness TikTok is on fire

Thanks for reading! If you have feedback or anything you’d like to share, feel free to reach out to me on social media or email (all linked here).

Until next time,
Grayson

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